Dalal Street corner: Benchmarks end highly volatile week marginally lower; what should investors do on Monday?

The Indian market closed the highly volatile week on a negative note ahead of opening of LIC IPO in the week starting May 2. Benchmarks Nifty50 and Sensex declined 0.4% and 0.2% respectively for the week ended April 29. The indices ended in the red on three occasions and closed on a positive note in two sessions between April 25 and 29. FMCG and Auto gained marginally by around half per cent as the majority of the sectors ended the week in the negative zone.   

On Friday, the headline indices corrected more than half per cent weighed down by profit booking in energy, banking and media stocks.  

The correction in the market on the last trading session of the week came despite Foreign institutional investors turned net buyers after their continuous selling spree for the past many days, as they bought shares worth Rs 743.22 crore on Thursday, according to stock exchange data.  

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said investors should focus on quality stocks in this market.  

"Dips were encouraging investors to accumulate quality stocks with focus on defensives & domestic growth sectors like manufacturing & capital goods," said Nair. 

He was of the view that a shrink in the US economy and rate hike expectations in the upcoming Fed meet triggered sell-off in the global market. "Domestic market reduced exposure ahead of the shortened next week and opening of India’s largest IPO," he said.  

Speaking on Nifty movement, Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Head of Technical Research, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas said the Nifty witnessed a volatile action in the week gone by & ultimately formed an Inside bar on the weekly chart.  

For the last couple of weeks, the index has been oscillating near its key weekly moving averages and this has developed as a triangular pattern on the daily chart, he said.  

"On April 29, the index faced resistance near the junction of the swing high on the daily chart & the 20 DMA i.e. near 17400. Thereon, the Nifty nosedived towards the end of the session & formed a bearish outside bar as well as an Engulfing bear candle on the daily chart," Sharekhan by BNP Paribas Head of Technical Research. 

Overall structure suggests that the index can continue to consolidate in the range of 17000-17400 & once the swing low of 16958 is breached then the index can tumble down towards 16600, added Ratnaparkhi. 

Meanwhile, the coming week will see no trading on NSE and BSE on May 3 (Tuesday) on account of Id-Ul-Fitr (Ramzan Id).